Susan Thieme is professor for geography and critical sustainability studies at the University of Bern, with a particular interest in in/justice and in/equalities in societies and the role different forms of (im)mobilities play in the context of education and work. She co-leads the mLab at the Institute of Geography, a collaborative space that encourages new modes of collective work and to critically use arts, media, and digital research methods

Panel „Care for Diversity“: Negotiating social differences and power geometries among healthcare professionals in a Swiss hospital

28th May 11.30 – 01.00 pm | Carole Ammann & Susan Thieme

Within the last two decades, social differences within the Swiss health care sector have increased due to the specialization of training, the differentiation, and academisation of nursing, the feminization of medicine, the entry of men into nursing professions, as well as the arrival of foreign-trained nurses and physicians. In addition, a new generation is joining the health sector labour force, and this generation challenges taken-for-granted notions about health professions. Healthcare institutions, on the one hand, profit from and depend on the diversity of their personnel. On the other hand, they need to ensure they are functioning well using processes we call homogenization. In this presentation, we ask how these social differences intersect and how they are negotiated between and among nurses and physicians in the everyday working life within a hospital setting.

.